Today I am making bread (and actually I should be proofing the dough right now.)
Baking used to be something that I found difficult, but in the last five years I've become something of a dab hand at it. I think once I let go of the scientific method and started going by feel is when it all came to me.
Most baking books preach absolute precision. You must rigorously measure and weigh and temp and dither and worry. Now, that's in disregard of the fact that perfectly lovely bread was being produced for centuries before it even occurred to anyone to invent clothes. My grandmother (fully clothed) made it in a zinc tub and baked it in a wood stove 'until it smelled done.' Guys in the Klondike made it in a hide bag they wore on their belly under their shirts. And once you've sat back and entertained THAT mental picture for a moment or two, you never look at a loaf of sourdough bread the same way.
If I didn't have a Cuisinart (a robocoupe) my shit would be sunk, though. Not only for bread, though. I use that sapsucker at least once a day; in fact I've chainsawed my way through three so far. I'm on #4, and #5 is waiting in the cupboard for its debut. Fork blending? Yeah, right. Kiss my what?
I love the smell of the ingredients. A nice egg, a little yogurt, water, yeast, the flour, the sugar and salt...they all have a perfume. And I love to handle the dough. I knead with my eyes closed, going mainly by feel to determine when enough is enough or things are too sticky or need dampening up.
Bread dough as it begins to work is a magic substance. Warmth begins to flow from it as the strands of gluten lengthen and the structure becomes silky. It's the same warmth a baby gives off when it's sleeping on your chest. A fragrance like heaven must smell early in the morning (when Jimi Hendrix is making toast) rises in little wisps as you turn and fold and turn and fold.
I make a french-style loaf once a week just for a giant hoagie sandwich dinner. So that all the goodies and yummies will fit and not squit out the sides, I tear out some of the fluff with a fork. For the rest of the evening the Yummy Biker and the Goonybird sneak into the kitchen and pick at the 'bread guts' for a snack and feel like they're getting away with something.
This is one of the priceless pleasures in life. Bill Gates has nothing I want.
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Love the post - except it's made me hungry...and I know exactly what you mean about breadmaking being a matter of feel rather than precision. My mum's made her own bread for years (we used to steal the bits that rose over the edges of the tins and feel like we were getting away with something!) but when I left home and asked her for the recipe it went something like " a bag of flour, three times round the bowl with the oil...enough salt...a bit of water and you'll know when it feels right...
ReplyDeleteI give you water, my brother. May you never thrist.
ReplyDeleteWe use a bread machne... But I hate the bread. Mum puts molasses in it and as a result it tastes like treacle. Not nice when you want peanut butter. I'm gonna start making my own. Without molasses...
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